Things are Looking Grim for the A's

Well, the A's have lost nine straight games and fallen 12 games behind the AL West leading Angels and 11.5 games behind the wild card leading Indians. Oddly, I haven't given up hope. I somehow still believe the A's can put together a run at the playoffs. If Rich Harden, Huston Street and Mike Piazza can get healthy and return to form, I think the A's still have an outside shot at making things interesting.

But things do indeed look bad. Here's a look at 10-game rolling averages for the A's runs scored for and runs scored against:



Basically, you want the blue line to be above the pink line, and that really hasn't been the case since mid-June. Since beating the Cardinals 14-3 on June 15, the A's have averaged 3.8 runs per game, while allowing an average of 5.75 runs. With a run differential like that, you'd expect a team to win only 30% of its games, and sure enough, the A's have gone 7-21, playing .250 baseball. Things aren't looking pretty, and we're quickly approaching the point where we're forced to "Wait Till Next Year."